Spoilers. Structurally the first traditional episode of Lost's fifth season, "He's Our You" focuses on Sayid (Naveen Andrews) -- now a prisoner of the DHARMA Institute in 1977 after being mistaken for a hostile, with flashbacks to various points in his off-island life over the past three years...Sayid has always been a character with a troubled history; a man with love in his heart, who can't escape his past as a gifted torturer and natural born killer. A twist teaser shows us a young Sayid (Anthony Keyvan) unflinchingly kill a chicken to help his squeamish brother impress their domineering father, and is duly given the praise. An act of violence, done for love...
Flashbacks show Sayid in his recent role as Ben's (Michael Emerson) hired gun, killing the last of his targets in Moscow, a Russian called Andropov. In a later flashback, Sayid is enjoying his newfound freedom by helping the charity Build The World in Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic, when Ben arrives to tell him of Locke's death (attributing it to a retaliatory murder by Widmore's men), and how Hurley (Jorge Garcia) is being watched by an operative outside his Mental Health Institute. Despite the threat to his friend, Sayid refuses to return to Ben's service for one last job.The third flashback whisks us to the marina scene from "This Place Is Death", with Sun (Yunjin Kim) threatening Ben's life. Sayid is present, but walks away to drink $120 per glass whiskey at a local bar. It's here he meets the beautiful Ilana (Zuleikha Robinson) who flirts with him and takes him back to her room, where she reveals she's actually been hired by Peter Avellino's family (a rich businessman Sayid killed on a golf course in season 4) and is under orders to take him to Guam -- hence why Sayid found himself on Ajira Airways Flight 316 with the rest of the Oceanic Six.
The on-island scenes show that Sayid is resigned to his fate at the hands of his DHARMA captors, even if that means he'll be killed. Sawyer (Josh Holloway) is doing his best to keep his friend safe, but Sayid's reluctance to play along with any of his schemes isn't helping, and he's under pressure to agree with Horace (Doug Hutchison) and Radzinsky's (Eric Lange) tougher plans for their captured enemy. This includes taking Sayid to see a DHARMA's resident interrogator, a mysterious man called Oldham (William Sanderson) who lives alone in a teepee. Oldham forces Sayid to take a truth serum, but upon hearing his crazy story of being a time-traveller from the future, everyone mistakenly believes he's been given too much of the drug and is just talking gibberish.
Sayid's fate would appear to be sealed as his execution is planned; a decision to seems to welcome as a way to atone for his sins, when he refuses to escape when Sawyer offers him the chance to stage a breakout. Young Ben (Sterling Beaumon) has meanwhile told Sayid about his deal with Richard Alpert to become a "hostile" and frees Sayid when everyone's distracted by a flaming DHARMA van sent into the Barracks. During their escape, Sayid and Ben are discovered by Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), who Sayid incapacitates before deciding to shoot Young Ben in the chest, before fleeing into the jungle.
It's this last shock that's the abiding memory of "He's Our You", as Sayid essentially tests Daniel Faraday's theory that you can't change the past. If that were true, it would be impossible for Sayid to kill Ben as a 12-year-old boy because we know he exists as an adult. Of course, maybe Daniel was wrong, meaning Sayid has essentially created a parallel universe where Ben no longer exists. Or possibly the adult Ben will disappear from existence in 2008, meaning Lost will suddenly have a fresh timeline that Ben was never a part of -- which is extremely unlikely.
Personally, I expect Young Ben to somehow survive the gunshot, particularly given the fact the island has a regenerative influence and has previously healed Locke numerous times from similar life-threatening injuries (and apparently resurrected him from death, let's not forget.) But has adult Ben known Sayid will one day travel back in time to '77 and shoot his younger self all along? Or will this memory be suddenly burned into his adult brain, a la Desmond's experience when Daniel spoke to him in the past earlier this season?
"He's Our You" wasn't especially thrilling on the whole, although I do find it clever that the show has effectively created three-years of recent history to explore in old-style flashbacks again. We still don't know much about Ilana, but the opacity cleared slightly regarding how Sayid came to be on Flight 316, and it's fun to ponder why the family of one of his victims would want him to return to the island. It's also a little confusing that Ben and Sayid have spent three years assassinating Widmore's cronies around the word (ostensibly to keep the Oceanic Six safe), when we know that Widmore wants the Oceanic Six to go back to the island -- just like Ben does! I'm sure that discrepancy will be cleared up some day, as you can never trust Ben or Widmore's motives, and there will probably be a hidden level of deceit going on.A subplot for Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) was rather perfunctory, but at least it dealt with the uncomfortable atmosphere now that Juliet and Sawyer are an item, so both women appear to have reached an understanding. It was also interesting to see that Sawyer's cover as LaFleur isn't as high-ranking as it perhaps seemed, but I am a little disappointed that DHARMA feel like quiet a small outfit. And we still haven't seen any indication of what they actually do day-to-day on the island. They were somehow more intriguing as a group when we just had their rundown buildings to explore and scratchy old video-tapes to watch, so I hope the show starts to give us some insight into what DHARMA are actually all about.
Questions!
- What kind of authority does Ilana have to take Sayid on a flight in handcuffs?
- What danger did Widmore's associates pose to the Oceanic Six, considering the fact we know Widmore wanted Locke to get them safely back to the island?
- Who torched the bus? Ben? Richard Alpert? Someone else?
- Will Young Ben die? If so, will the older Ben be erased from existence, or will a parallel universe be created?
29 March 2009
Sky1, 9pm
Writers: Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz
Director: Greg Yaitanes
Cast: Reiko Aylesworth (Amy), Sayed Bedreya (Sayid's Father), Sterling Beaumon (Young Ben), Patrick Fischler (Phil), Jon Gries (Roger Linus), Doug Hutchison (Horace), Eric Lange (Radzinsky), Zuleikha Robinson (Ilana), William Sanderson (Oldham), Dmitri Boudrine (Ivan), Michael Hardy (Floyd), Anthony Keyvan (Young Sayid), Xavier Raabe-Manupule (Omer) & Joe Toro (Bartender)
